# Does Islam Actually Oppose Science? | Snapshots with Imam Tom Facchine

**Author:** Tom Facchine
**Series:** Snapshots with Imam Tom Facchine
**Published:** 2026-02-04
**YouTube:** https://youtu.be/GxSOyTp8KUg
**URL:** https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/snapshots-with-imam-tom-facchine/does-islam-actually-oppose-science-snapshots-with-imam-tom-facchine
**Topics:** History, Politics & Practical Theology

## Description
The clash between Islam and science never existed. Islam has always balanced knowledge and ethics with modern advancements and progress, so why is the Muslim world today struggling? Watch as Imam Tom breaks down the claim that Islam is “backwards” and anti-science, showing that the instability of...

## Transcript
**[0:00]** What images come to mind when you think of the Muslim world? If you pay attention to the corporate media, it's probably sand dunes and camels or maybe it's even war-torn areas, places that there's scarcity and chaos. Well, a lot of this

**[0:18]** imagery, there's a subtle subtext going on. There's the assumption that Islam is to blame, that these places just can't get their act together because Islam is backwards and it's superstitious and it's anti-rational against science, all of these things. Now, this claim is historically false. It's also

**[0:34]** theologically illiterate and perhaps more importantly, it's politically motivated. Today, we're gonna break down Islam's actual relationship with specifically science and how Muslim civilization led the world in scientific progress and why modern instability has everything to do with

**[0:50]** geopolitics, not with Islam being backwards. The first point is that Islam has never had a war against science. Unlike medieval Christianity, which had very famous battles between the church and scientists such as Galileo and Copernicus, think the Inquisition, Islam never developed an institution that

**[1:09]** claimed monopoly over the truth. We don't have a centralized church hierarchy like medieval Christianity did. There was no Islamic Pope, there was no central authority banning books, no doctrine insisting that the earth was the center of the universe. Knowledge production was decentralized and largely

**[1:25]** uncensored. And beyond that, learning is a religious and moral imperative. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala repeatedly calls in the Qur'an for people to observe, reflect, and analyze, to study the natural world. Allah says, [Ali 'Imran 3:191], Do they not reflect upon the creation of the heavens and the earth? And Allah

**[1:44]** says, [Al-'Ankabut 29:20], Say, travel through the land and observe. Muslim scholars saw knowledge, whether scripture or knowledge of nature, as part of a single truth that was created by God. Studying the universe wasn't a rebellion against religion, it was rather an act of worship. That's why early Muslims didn't

**[2:02]** fear science, in fact, they cultivated it. From the 8th to 15th centuries, Muslim majority regions were actually the scientific powerhouses of the world. They weren't influenced by science, they were producers of science. Some highlights, Ibn al-Haytham invented the scientific method, centuries before Bacon did.

**[2:18]** Al-Khwarizmi, he founded algebra and influenced the development of algorithms. Ibn Sina wrote the Canon of Medicine, which served as Europe's primary medical textbook for 500 years. Al-Biruni measured the Earth's radius with astonishing accuracy, and Muslim astronomers corrected Greek models and

**[2:35]** built observatories that were unmatched until modern times. These achievements weren't accidents, they weren't anomalies, they came from an entire worldview that saw rationality and revelation as complementary, not as contradicting. Islamic civilization believed that knowledge was a communal

**[2:50]** obligation, that the intellect was a divine gift, and that nature is a primary sign pointing to the Creator. That framework produced scientific flourishing, and those societies reaped the benefits in terms of standard of living and quality of life. But it wasn't just about science, it was also about

**[3:06]** science grounded in ethics. Islam provided the balance between worldly advancement and without compromising on ethical or moral clarity. So then, okay, why is the Muslim world struggling today? Well, anti-Islamic propaganda wants to communicate just one conclusion, that Muslim societies are underdeveloped

**[3:23]** because Islam is incompatible with science and reason. This is fake news. Rooted in colonial arrogance and modern geopolitics rather than history, the real causes of today's instability are well documented. We'll give three. One, colonialism. Colonialism shattered political, educational, and economic

**[3:40]** structures. European powers didn't just extract wealth, they also dismantled the indigenous institutions that were on the ground. They redrew borders and they imposed puppet rulers. Number two, post-colonial interference continues to destabilize the region. From coups, to sanctions, to proxy wars, the Muslim world

**[3:57]** has endured a century of external manipulation. And three, conflict drains resources and disrupts scientific development. No nation, whether it's a Muslim nation or not, can build Nobel Prize-winning labs while they're under occupation, or under a bombardment, or they're under the clasp of a dictatorship

**[4:14]** supported by foreign powers. None of this has anything to do with opposing science. It has everything to do with geopolitics. Meanwhile, whenever Muslim regions do regain stability, such as Turkey or Malaysia, scientific progress rebounds very rapidly because the capacity was always there. So where do

**[4:31]** these false ideas come from if they're not true? Again, we'll go three main sources. One is Enlightenment-era anti-Muslim polemics. There were people, European writers, that were writing against Islam, trying to dismantle it and refute it. And they would, let's say, stretch the truth in order to do so. So

**[4:47]** they would try to portray Islam as irrational to justify their colonial domination. And this narrative still shapes textbooks today. The second reason is selective images of modern conflict. So Western audiences only see war zones, and they assume that that represents Islam, not the consequences of political

**[5:05]** or military intervention. And three, the projection of Christianity and Christian history onto Islam. Critics assume that Islam had the same battle with reason that Christianity did, even though Islamic civilization preserved Greek works at the same time that Europeans burned them. These myths are repeated

**[5:21]** because they support an agenda. That's to portray Muslims as backwards, and that is part of dehumanizing them. Because when you dehumanize Muslims, you can justify the discrimination against Muslims and rationalize foreign policies that harm Muslim societies. In truth, Islam and science are not enemies. They are rather

**[5:38]** allies. When you look at Islamic scripture, Islamic history, and the Islamic intellectual tradition, the conclusion is very simple. Islam encourages scientific inquiry. Muslim civilization advanced global science for centuries. Modern Muslim underdevelopment is primarily caused by politics. And it's

**[5:55]** very important to realize that in the time in which we live, where atheistic science, completely unbound by any ethical or moral law, has wrought havoc upon the creation of God. Whether it's nuclear weapons, whether it's AI or tech surveillance, and the emerging techno-feudalism that many people are

**[6:13]** concerned about, the balance between advancement and ethics that Islam provided is needed now more than ever.

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